links for 2010-04-20

"I'm guessing (or hoping, perhaps) that Mr. Gaiman knows better, and might want to recall those words. Maybe he did recall those words, somewhere… Has anyone got info on that?Did anyone say 'Uh, Mr. Gaiman…' either directly to him, or maybe on Twitter? Did anyone rebut his remark? On a blog, maybe?"

"One of the most important festivals in the Sikh calendar will be celebrated this week by the 336, 000 Sikhs who live in Britain. Vasakhi marks the New Year and the creation of the Khalsa, one of the most important institutions in Sikhism which stands for equality for all. As proud as I am of my religion and its principals of equality, there are times when I feel that women are not always as equal as men when practising Sikhism.

"There are ten Gurus, or teachers, who shaped Sikhism into the religion that is practised today. They all thought women should be equal to men."

"Even thus revealed, Ferrera is by the standards of your average TV heroine too broad, too short, too brown, which is part of what made the show valuable. (It was also just fun.) As working-class Mexican Americans, the Suarez family of Queens, N.Y. — including Tony Plana as father Ignacio, the excellent Ana Ortiz as sister Hilda and Mark Indelicato as fashionista nephew Justin — were rare for television, and no less now, sadly, than when we first met them."

"What messages are being reinforced here? Don't aim too high. Take what you can get. Your worth rests on your ability to get a man. And to the men: If you have an education, congratulations, you're a commodity, because no one expected that much from you.

Juxtapose this with the usual depictions of successful, single white women: Confident. Independent. Desirable. Singlehood is not something white women are afflicted with in popular media. White women are living their lives; they are not waiting."

"Aung wants students in South Philadelphia to stop seeing themselves as victims. "There are already student organizers who are active, but they can be trained to document incidents and really hold the district accountable for their actions."

At Lafayette, few ethnic tensions remain – because the school is almost empty. Compton and Mangone sometimes teach just two or three students a day. Compton wonders whether any lessons from Lafayette might help, not just at South Philadelphia High, but everywhere. "How is Philadelphia defending the rights of every student in their system?" he wonders. "That's what matters."

"Why, for $20 million, does Why Did I Get Married Too have so many holes and 'flaws' (even though much more expensive films like Avatar too have moments of bad writing)? There are numerous instances. At one point in the film Malik Yoba seriously accuses Janet Jackson of having never cried over the death of their son. In the narrative his accusation is supposed to prove how emotionally deranged she is (which I’ll talk about later). Sounds reasonable, right? But wait, the climax of the first installment, Why Did I Get Married, has Janet Jackson doing what? Crying over the death of her son! Has Perry read his own scripts?"

"In February 2008, McRae and former officer James Swain were caught on video brutally beating Johnson in the lobby of the Shelby County Correction Center. The 18-minute video has no audio, but Johnson claimed McRae assaulted her after she refused to respond to homophobic slurs of 'he/she' and 'faggot.'"

"The Washington Times, not normally a spurting fountain of Muslim-friendly coverage, praises the relatively successful integration of Muslim immigrants in America when compared to that of Europe. (The newsstory mostly concentrates on inter-faith dialogue, but the broader implication of better relative integration (e.g. “melting pot”) in America comes through loud and clear.) While I do enjoy a nice dose of American exceptionalism, and I do think it may apply here in some ways, let me nevertheless throw out a less nationalistic hypothesis on relative integration levels. I am too lazy and busy to find and crunch the appropriate numbers and surveys to confirm or refute it, but here it is: Could some of the relatively better Muslim/MENA integration in America be simply due to the fact that Muslim immigrants there have tended towards the educated professional and middle class, rather than being a large class of laborers as may be the case in lots of Europe?"

Race, Culture, and Identity in a Colorstruck World

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Latoya Peterson (DC) is the Owner and Editor (not the Founder!) of Racialicious, Arturo García (San Diego) is the Managing Editor, Andrea Plaid (NYC) is the Associate Editor. You can email us at team@racialicious.com.